


Skin And Bones

by wastelands



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Horcrux Hunting, Tent Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24393025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastelands/pseuds/wastelands
Summary: "You deserved better from him, Harry. And I feel responsible for…for all of it. For coming between you both. I chose you, he was right. But he should have chosen you too." Hermione and Harry talk after Ron leaves during the Horcrux Hunt, possibly changing their relationship irrevocably. H/Hr.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 38
Kudos: 188





	1. Part One

**A/N:** Thank you so much for giving this story a chance! This is my first foray back into the fanfiction world in many years, so I’m a little bit rusty, but this plot bunny wouldn’t leave me alone. I’ve considered leaving this as a one-shot, but I do have some ideas and drabbles for two or three more installments, so I’ll wait to see what the response is like for this piece and move from there. This story is crossposted to my FFN account under the penname anchored. 

Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is not mine and no money is being made. Just playing in JK Rowling’s sandbox.

* * *

He watches her from the kitchen, the mug of tea in his hands long cold.

It’s been three weeks since Ron walked out on them, red and dizzy and furious. Accusatory. But that was Ron’s way, sometimes. They both knew what he was like, when this all began. Had always known. 

Didn’t make it hurt any less when he left.

It’s Hermione’s watch shift. She sits just outside the flap of the tent, her thick gray puffer jacket wrapped around her body — a body which Harry is noticing with increasing concern is growing much too thin. Her arms are wrapped around her shins, her head resting atop knobby knees. Eyes open but seeing nothing.

He’s hungry, but then again, that seems to be a permanent state of being these days. Their food stores are low again ( _weren’t they always?_ ) but Harry Potter is nothing if not impulsive. He pulls out their last loaf of oat bread, toasts two slices with his wand, scrapes some butter over them, to the edges. 

When he brings them out to her, her eyes narrow. She is Hermione, so she is worried. Her expression is troubled and it interrogates him. How much bread is left? Is this really necessary? When should we head to a market and steal more food? She communicates the questions with her eyes as she looks at him standing above her. He answers in kind, raising an eyebrow. Challenging her to say all of it, any of it out loud.

“You need to eat, Hermione.” He gestures to her vaguely with his hands. “I mean…look at you. Christ.” 

He places one of the slices in his mouth, bites down, chews loudly. Another challenge.

She huffs but her heart isn’t in it. “You always did have a way with words.”

“Ooh lovely, sarcasm. My favorite defense mechanism.” His tone is flat but his eyes dance in the moonlight playfully. “I’m…I’m serious. You look pinched. Like your skin can’t hold you or something.”

Her expression is hard to read. Her cheek is still resting on her knees as she looks up at him. When had the circles under her eyes become so dark, he wonders. _What am I doing to you?_ He holds the piece of toast directly in front of her mouth. She seems at war with herself for a long moment, then releases a soft sigh, and tilts her head up, pulling the toast out of his hands with her teeth.

For a moment she simply chews begrudgingly, thoughtfully. Stares off into an endless forest. He waits for her to speak, because he’s not sure what to say.

“Maybe it can’t,” comes her reply, and she says it so softly he almost doesn’t hear it. 

“Maybe what can’t..what?”

“Maybe my skin _can’t_ hold me.” 

She pauses. For a moment it seems like the forest has held its breath at her response. Even the wind dies down and absolute silence follows. She shudders involuntarily before she takes another bite of her toast and her eyes fill with tears. It’s clearly against her better judgment. She angrily wipes them away with the back of her free hand before they can fall.

“It seems to be doing a well enough job so far. Give it some credit, would you?” His expression is warm as he crouches to sit beside her, mirroring her body language, pulling his knees up to his chin and gazing at the witch to his left. Their eyes meet in the darkness.

“I’m so sorry he left you, Harry,” she whispers suddenly, and her voice sounds tired.

He starts at that, lifting his head slightly, frowning. 

“What—why would you say that to me? I was going to say that to _you_. I know that you…that you guys…you were…” he clears his throat awkwardly, puts his face back between his knees. “You know.”

And then her tiny hand is on the back of his head, moving softly through his hair, reverent and soft.

“We weren’t. Not in the way…not in the way you think. For him, perhaps. But not…not for me. Never for me. Not really.”

For reasons he cannot even begin to understand or contemplate, Harry feels a surge of relief deep in his gut. There is surprise there, and some sympathy for Ron’s unrequited feelings, too, but mostly, it is relief. Sweet, searing relief. That maybe things wouldn’t change so much after all, between the three of them, when all of this was finished. That perhaps later, they could go back to Something Like Normal.

“Could’ve fooled me.” He turns to look at her again. Her fingers feel so wonderful on his scalp. Soothing. Like being held. He leans into it subconsciously, afraid she’ll stop. “I mean, it’s not like it was super discreet, Hermione. Between the two of you, all this time.”

She pauses to gather her reply. A knot forms on her forehead. She is thinking very, very hard how to word this.

“You know better than anyone that it was a childish, silly thing. Hormonal, maybe? All that jealousy, and arguing. It was awful for a stretch. I didn’t like myself very much back then.”

Something large and heavy sits between them at that comment, an awful understanding. Ron had made her feel terribly about herself frequently, always putting Harry in the middle, forcing him to choose a side.Perhaps to isolate her. To wear her down.

“We were kids. He had a crush. And I….well, I’ve never had someone have a crush on me before. I suppose it’s just the nature of the thing, that…for a bit I responded, I played along. Thought that we could be…be something. Because, it was… it was nice to feel _desirable_ for once. To feel wanted, instead of needed. And for the record, I regret it now. I feel like I led him on a bit. And God Harry, I love him. I truly do. He means the world to me, but…” And she has to pause to wipe the tears away again. “Just not like that.”

Harry lets out a long, pained sigh, her revelation settling over them like shadows. “ _Shit_.” And then he laughs, but it’s dry, humorless. It’s not funny and they both know it. She bites her bottom lip, squirms under the weight of the truth, heavy between them.

She takes the last bite of her toast, chews slowly before swallowing. Her voice is distant, contemplative. 

“I know it wasn’t actually that long ago. But it feels like it was. Feels like a lifetime ago, now.”

Something clicks into place in Harry’s head at that, and weariness fills him. “I get that.”

Hermione’s eyes convey a sort of acceptance. It Is What It Is. A mutual understanding hovers between them now, filling the empty space of Ron’s absence. The knowledge that the people they are and the people they were, before this began, are simply not the same. Time doesn’t flow in a straight line for them. It flows both faster, and slower, here in this tent among the trees. But always, always taking. 

“You’ve been pretty messed up over it since he left.”

At this, her hand abruptly stops stroking his head. She pulls it back into the safety of her jacket sleeve and he immediately mourns the loss.

“That’s because he didn’t choose you. And it breaks my heart.” 

He doesn’t know what to say to that. His stomach churns with discomfort. He presses his lips together and waits.

Hermione’s eyes are locked on a spot on the frost-covered ground just beyond her feet and she doesn’t blink. Her voice is soft and thick with emotion. “He’s your best friend. He never should have said those things. Never should have walked away. Never should have used me as an excuse, of all things.” At this she puts her palms against her eyes, and her body tightens against itself further, folding inward like origami. Like it’s trying to hold something vital in, to stop it tumbling out.

“You deserved better from him, Harry. And I feel responsible for…for all of it. For coming between you both. I chose you, he was right. But he should have chosen you too.”

Harry’s heart lurches. He had come out here to comfort her, not for this, and now he wonders how she kept it all in for so long, and how she’s not blowing away in the wind. She looks so small and pale next to him right now that he worries she actually might. He reaches over and places a hand on her knee. She removes a fist from her eye to grasp his with her own. Her grip is tight, shockingly so.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Harry. It’s my fault,” she breathes as an afterthought. There is a distinct note of panic in her voice, and it fizzles into the air around them. He decides he doesn’t like it.

Before she realizes he’s moved, Harry is kneeling in front of her and his long fingers are around her cheeks. They are cold and they are too hollow, he notes. She raises her eyes almost dutifully.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare say that, Hermione,” he says to her, more force in his tone than even he was expecting. Her eyes glimmer with tears that haven’t fallen. Her lips tremble and his chest aches for her. 

“Ron leaving was his own decision. He’s the only one at fault for that, you hear me? And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pissed off, or hurt. But this isn’t the bloody Triwizard Tournament. The stakes are real now and he knew that when he came along.” His voice is passionate but his hands are soft on her face as it grips her jawline ( _too sharp_ ). He knows that he is solidifying these feelings for himself, out loud, for the first time. For her. And now that they have solid shape, he can’t take them back.

He pauses, and when he continues his tone is lower. “When we see him again, I expect we’ll have to deal with it. But for now, I’m alright. Don’t mourn on my account, if that’s what you’re doing. Besides, I’m not alone. I have you, don’t I?”

Her expression softens and she closes her eyes, her shoulders almost sagging with relief. She leans forward slightly, resting her forehead against his. “Oh, Harry. Of course you do. Always. You’ll always have me.”

Harry moves to place a lingering kiss on her cheek, like a thank you, before returning his forehead to hers. He brushes their noses together, and hers is frigid but her breath is hot against his jaw. Her eyes are open wide, so wide, gazing at him. Suddenly the air around them seems charged with electricity and ozone. 

It would just take a little shift, just there, and Merlin, he doesn’t know what comes over him in that moment. He tilts his face forward, slowly, as if giving her time to pull away or clear her throat or slap him. 

She doesn’t.

And all at once his lips are on hers, and they are velvety and delicate and they are kissing him back. She makes a small sound like a moan, and it sends lightning through his body and he wishes he could bottle that sound. He thinks that her mouth tastes like wheat and like the cold. Her breath hitches, and then her hands are grabbing the back of his neck, pulling him closer. 

Harry realizes with an astounding clarity that he is kissing his best friend, Hermione Granger, and he likes it. He supposes there will be time for logic later.

He pulls away abruptly and she almost topples forward without him leaning against her for balance. He stands up, and she is looking through him, and she raises her fingers to her mouth in surprise. 

He holds out his hand. An invitation. She accepts. 

Pulling her up to stand before him ( _when did I get so much taller than her?_ ), he snakes one arm around her waist, the other behind her head, and he leans down to kiss her again before either of them has a chance to think about What This Means.

Her arms are around his neck and her tongue is on his bottom lip and her mouth is soft and welcoming and it _needs_ , it needs so much that Harry cannot help but give. So he gives, and his hands feel shackled around her bum and in her hair, and if he never gets them back he’s okay with that. He lifts her easily and then her legs are wrapping around his middle until he can’t breathe, so tight.

Harry thinks this is the fullest he has been in weeks. 

Her kisses are hungry, almost desperate, and they are begging.

“God, I want you,” she keens into his mouth. 

Almost instantly he feels himself growing hard beneath her body. Though there are many reasons to, he knows, it doesn’t even occur to him to stop. And then he is moving, charging forward into the tent toward his bed. He falls forward, depositing her there, her legs still wrapped around him, bringing him closer. 

He pulls away only to lift her shirt. Ribs protruding softly above a sunken belly. He kisses each one, devouring her, and glances up at her to see her fist in her mouth. Her breath comes in great heaving gasps and her cheeks are pink with desire. He frantically unbuttons her jeans, tugging them roughly down her legs, and reaches behind him to pull his own shirt off.

Pauses to look at her, a question hanging in the air. 

The moment feels so fragile. If he talks out loud he might break it. 

_Are you sure?_

“Please, Harry,” she cries. 

And he kisses her, everywhere, leaves nothing out. Breathes her in. And then he is moving desperately inside her and they are one person, writhing.

Harry thinks that for the rest of his life ( _however long or short that may be_ ) he will never, ever forget the look on Hermione’s face as she comes undone around him.

When he reaches his own climax, she looks dizzyingly into his eyes, her hands clenched almost painfully into his back, watching him, so eager. She is panting and mewling, as he jerks into her and cries her name.

Later, they lay together, a tangled mass of limbs. He thought it would be awkward, after, but somehow, it isn’t. Her palm rests on his chest, her head in the crook of his neck. He kisses her forehead and traces circles on her back. 

“Should one of us…take watch?” she mumbles, sounding almost afraid of his answer.

Logically he knows that one of them should, but right now, he simply can’t bring himself to care. Can’t even entertain the possibility of physical separation. If this is the night they’re caught, if this is the night they die, then so be it. He is so, very tired, and the thought is close to comforting.

“Not tonight.”

He tightens his grip around her. Tomorrow, there will be much to do. 

But right now, there is only the feeling of Hermione in his arms, soft skin and coarse hair, wrapped around him like a blanket. There is only the feeling, small and quiet in his chest, that he is painfully aware of how terribly _right_ this seems.

He falls asleep counting her inhales and exhales in the darkness.


	2. Part Two

**A/N:** Thank you so much for the positive response to the first part of this fic! It's my first in many years, so it's been wonderful to scratch that creative itch again with our favorite HP couple. I've decided to continue working on this piece. I think there will be two or three more parts before it's complete. You'll notice I jump around a bit - my intention wasn't to rewrite all of DH, but to highlight certain moments and write them from the perspective of a H/Hr whose relationship has definitely shifted into something more. I'm thinking of starting the next piece from Shell Cottage, or maybe even after BOH. We'll see. Anyway, this part is very angsty. Consider yourself warned! Oh, who am I kidding, all of it is pretty angsty.

 **Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is not mine and no money is being made. Just playing in JK Rowling's sandbox.

* * *

They are both gasping for breath when Hermione runs into the clearing, her eyes blazing with terror as she spots Harry through the thicket of trees. Her expression is feral and untamable. Her fingers move for her wand, which is poking out of his pocket. Harry notices immediately with a worried blanch that she has chased after him in just her Levi's and an oversized wool jumper.

No coat.

He knows he should have woken her up, should have explained, before he left the tent. Now, with the painful, blistering ring around his neck where the locket tried to hold him under the water's surface, he's distraught that he didn't.

Then she sees Ron.

On his knees at the edge of the frozen pool, the sword of Gryffindor beside him and the shattered locket clutched in his fist. At Hermione's entrance he immediately looks away and flushes crimson with palpable recognition.

At least he has the wisdom to be ashamed.

Harry shudders in the winter air, and god, he's fucking freezing. And he hates this interaction, hates watching it, hates that he feels like he's suddenly intruding, and he hates that he hates that. He's grateful she's appearing now, before Ron had the chance to surrender to his most basic impulse.

Before he could ask if what the locket showed him was true.

Because then Harry would have had to answer, and by now he's not sure if he is capable of denying it. And less willing than anything else to define it for Ron before he's even defined it for Hermione. Or for himself. Before the outside world comes in to mold and distort and influence.

Amidst the apprehension, something soothing. _It's gone, it's gone, it's gone._

He glances away from Ron's tormented face and back at Hermione, her expression drawn, frozen, as she takes in the gangly redhead before them.

Harry finds himself wanting very much to flee to the safety of their tent, before he realizes that Their Tent isn't Their Tent anymore and he reels with the knowledge that everything is shifting around them both. Again. Indeed, around them all.

His feet remain planted on the ground while he shivers and no one speaks for a long time. The silence is overflowing and crowded and it stretches between them as if it has physical weight.

At the beginning, he had felt Ron's absence like a deep ache in his gut, a hollow, mournful thing. Hermione refused to look at him. He would hear her muffled sobs in the night, chipping away at something which was already hiding and wounded inside him. A deep, unspoken fear that Ron had been found and snatched, or worse. Her hands always red and chapped from wringing them, uneasy, despairing.

At the beginning, Ron had left them, leaving a smoking crater behind in his place. _Nearly seven weeks ago now,_ Harry thinks. Might as well have been seven years.

Because that was before. This is after. And everything is changed.

He lets his gaze settle on Hermione's wary face and his shoulders sag. Tawny eyes sparkling with an emotion he isn't sure how to describe and tries very hard not to understand. He wants her to look back at him, he realizes with a jolt, but she is still looking at Ron.

He feels an abrupt, unfathomably painful tug in his chest.

Tries to settle his breathing. No use. He shakes harder. His damp jumper and jeans are stiff in the chilly air and it seems like they are turning to ice around his flesh. Then a trembling Ron finds the strength to meet her eyes.

The cold is bottomless and it's inside him now.

_Please. Please look at me._

As if she can hear him inside her head she suddenly snaps to attention and her gaze is his, all his, and full of him, and he's so cold it's burning.

She marches straight for him, pulls her wand from his back pocket before muttering a drying charm on his clothes and hair, and a warming charm on his frozen skin, and as the shaking subsides his green eyes clutch her brown ones, grasping, reaching.

A frightened whisper. "Are you alright?" And Harry nods. She regretfully touches the raw skin around his neck with a delicate finger. Her eyes say that it needs Essence of Dittany. It has to wait until they return to the tent.

_Thank you. I'm alright now. I'm sorry I scared you. Thank you. I'm fine. Where's your coat?_

The moment holds on for dear life.

He considers the path laid out before him now, unyielding and unseeable.

He desperately wants to take her hand.

"Hermione—" Ron croaks.

The moment breaks.

She blinks, like she forgot Ron was ever there. Something wild flashes across her face before it's carried away into the night.

"Not here," she murmurs, tightlipped, and she turns on her heel, the unspoken order to follow hovering above their heads.

They let her lead them back to the tent, with a wandless Harry in the middle and Ron bringing up the rear.

Harry hasn't missed the dangerous inelegance of Ron's body. Every footstep crunches against frozen ground. Branches and twigs crumble under his worn winter boots, and his too-long arms scrape against the lichen on the trees as he tries to navigate his way in the dark.

The sounds thrust echoes through the air, away from them and towards something, or someone else.

Harry feels exposed. There is a surge of resentment, laced with guilt.

He looks sharply back at Ron, irritated, and then before he can say it ( _Please shut up, Ron_ ) Hermione wordlessly muffles the sound with the most subtle flick of her wand.

He and Hermione had gotten so good at moving quietly, learning to use the forest like an invisibility cloak. Hand in hand. Ready to Apparate away at any time.

If Ron had been here, perhaps he would have learned too.

Bitterness courses through Harry's veins.

If Ron had been here. But he wasn't. And now, he is.

His fingers itch for his wand, and he is vulnerable and he loathes it and Hermione is leading the charge and she is vulnerable and he loathes that even more.

Then the tent appears before them like a desert mirage, and Hermione is rapidly muttering defensive spells and silencing charms. As she closes the walls of the wards around their clearing, Ron staggers into the tent, perhaps to dry off his own clothes.

Harry doesn't begrudge him a moment alone to recover from the horcrux's deafening montage. And to prepare for what is about to come.

Hermione finishes her spellwork and turns to face him, her eyes glinting with tears, and Harry's stomach heaves with dread.

He so fiercely wants to hold her that it hurts to breathe. Wants to feel her face under his hands. Hermione. His Hermione.

Was she? Was she ever?

_Oh, god._

Panic in his chest, tight, squeezing. She glances at the tent, and back at Harry, and he shudders. Ron's presence inside rises up between them like an impenetrable wall. Fuck. Fuck. There is a terrible impression that the tent is shrinking his entire world into a single, ineffable point.

Tomorrow is here. A new reality begins. It feels too soon.

His mind flashes to the first night he made love to her. And then the second. The third. The fourth (oh, the fourth). All the secret nights—and sometimes days—that followed. Making her moan. Her hands on his back and on his cheekbones and her lips on his skin. The indelible, absolute possession of her. Waking up wrapped around her and inside her. The stillness amidst it all. Every sound and every silence. He tries to cling to each memory, gathering them to him desperately before they spiral out, out, and away.

"Harry, I—" she pleads and he notices suddenly that she is trembling.

He finds he can't bear to hear what it is she is about to say. _Please not yet. Not now. I don't want to hear it yet. I know I have to but I can't. Just not yet._

All he manages to say is, "Later."

She hesitates. He can see a million questions forming and reforming in her mind.

Later.

She nods, and together they enter the tent.

Ron is slumped in a chair at their kitchen table, three mugs of tea steaming on the hardwood. He anxiously scratches his own arms. Doesn't look at them. Looks everywhere, and anywhere else.

"Er—I made some tea."

The gesture of good will hangs in the air but neither of them moves to sit down. Hermione steels herself, takes a lengthy breath.

"Where did you go?"

"I tried to come back. Soon after I left. But I couldn't find the tent. Felt like a right tosser. But I didn't know how to get passed your wards. And when I couldn't find you, I thought maybe you'd gone on to another location. I've been staying at muggle pubs, wandering up and down the countryside for weeks."

"How did you find us?" She crosses her arms tightly.

"The Deluminator. I don't know how it works but it helped me Apparate close by. I was getting ready to camp out when I saw the Patronus. I thought it was Harry's, so I followed it. And well…here I am."

Harry feels Hermione's gaze on him.

"But it wasn't yours." She says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Harry shakes his head.

"Alright." Case closed, for now. This wasn't the time. _Later._ "How did you get the sword? What happened out there?"

Harry answers automatically. "The Patronus led me to it. I saw it in the water. Should have taken the horcrux off first, though. Practically drowned me at the bottom of that pool. But Ron showed up and got me out. He—he, er…"

Harry swallows hard, tries to avoid Hermione's icy stare. Thinks of the moment the locket opened before them, a terrified Ron holding the sword in both hands. The things it said to him to save itself, to maim, to injure. The sinking of Harry's heart as a ghostly apparition of himself and Hermione kissed.

Ron's strangled, horrified cries.

He thinks of the things it got wrong, and the things it didn't.

Ron looks at the floor, stricken, and then looks back up, slowly, between them.

"It…tried to protect itself. Get under Ron's skin. But he managed to destroy it, in the end." Harry clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck, and Hermione doesn't press. He senses that despite her curiosity she's trying to pick her battles.

Later.

"I'm glad it's done."

For a minute they simply let that fact wash over them. The horcrux glints at them from the table, a dead thing now, its spell broken.

"But you left us, Ronald."

It is matter of fact and to the point and it leaves nothing out. And that fact washes over them, too, all over again. Rinse and repeat.

Ron finally finds the strength to look up at her, and Harry watches the emotions transforming his friend's face, twisting it, all sorrow and regret and longing, and _don't look at her like that, you don't get to look at her like that anymore._

"I know. I know I did. I'm so sorry for that. It was stupid." His eyes gleam with tears that don't fall. "If I could take it back, I would. In a heartbeat."

"But you can't take it back, can you? It's done."

It is so final and definitive that even Harry winces. Ron seems to crumble from within. He grips the table, his knuckles white, and he looks as though he'd rather sink into the earth than hear another word out of her mouth.

"Hermione, please listen to me—"

"NO, _YOU_ LISTEN!" She shouts, clutching her fists at her sides. Harry moves subconsciously closer to her as she shuts her eyes tight and takes several shaky breaths, trying to regain her composure.

"This is the most awful, disloyal, childish, _selfish_ thing you've ever done. We decided to face this together. As a team. You chose that, remember? You chose to be here. And at the first sign of conflict, you walked out." She begins to pace angrily and Harry follows every movement. "You let your insecurities dictate your behavior, _again._ You abandoned Harry over petty nonsense, _again._ In the middle of a war, you—you coward! While we were planning and researching you were skulking around feeling sorry for yourself, as usual! Weren't you? After I Obliviated my own fucking parents—you threw a fit because—what—you missed your three meals a day at the bloody Burrow?!"

She's panting and she's right, like always, but her words are so sharp that it's like treading through barbed wire. Harry thinks of her parents and it is a sorrowful knife in his chest, how much she risked, how much she had to sacrifice, to be here, with him.

Always, always with him. Sacrificing. He puts a hand through his hair and it is shaking. The guilt twists and eats its way through to his bones.

"Hermione, just wait a second—" he begins. He wants to reign in her anger but he can't, he knows he can't—unable to commit to a strategy, because he feels it too. He feels it all.

"No, Harry! He needs to hear it."

The energy radiating off of her is tremendous. Ron shrinks back into his chair and Harry is sure he has never seen him quite so pale.

"Merlin, I didn't—that's not—the _horcrux_ —" Ron splutters, his face red and hot and contorted with shame. It's clear he wants to argue, wants to defend himself, wants to wipe it all clean. Can't, can't, can't. Too little too late. Far too late for that now.

"You don't get to blame the horcrux for what was already festering, Ron! Take some responsibility for once. Harry's your best friend, and you deserted him! Deserted me—when we needed you the most. Sorry doesn't cut it. Sorry is never going to be enough, don't you get that? You damaged something here and it can't be fixed that easily. For fuck's sake you tried to make me—"

Her voice cracks and she is crying and Harry's heart may very well be disintegrating into dust under his ribs. Ron's head is in his hands.

Her tone is reduced to a whimper now. "You tried to make me leave Harry. Leave him alone, in the middle of all this. Do you— _god, Ron_ —do you even know me at all? I would—I would _never_ —"

And all the anger goes out of Harry then, extinguished, like someone has blown out a candle. _All because of me. All of this. Because of me._

He moves forward to stand between them and clutches her upper arms, utterly bewildered and out of his depth.

"Okay. It's enough, now."

She looks up at him, her eyes pleading and confused and regretful. Little hiccups escape her mouth. She looks shocked at herself. He is used to wrapping his arms around her now, and it hurts that in this moment he can't.

Because the game has suddenly, drastically changed, and he doesn't know what the rules are anymore.

He can't say that here, not yet, and he hopes that somehow she understands. But then, there was very little in this world that Hermione Granger didn't understand.

_I'm with you. I hear you. I know. Now let it go. Please._

He doesn't want to build this bridge between them, but he must. He doesn't want to be the leader, but he is. He doesn't want to this chasm to widen, but he fears it likely will, in the end.

Later.

He's tired. The rest can wait for another day.

Harry thinks, in a very private, petulant place, _I don't want this fucking job. I never asked for any of it._

And he doesn't know what to do to mend this fracture but Christ it aches. His ears are ringing. He glances over his shoulder behind him — at Ron's elbows on the table, his head in his hands, his broken, fatigued sobs muffled underneath his fingers.

Harry feels trapped, so trapped in here. The cloth walls seem to shrink in toward his body. Nowhere to run. With a flood of remorse, he realizes suddenly that he wishes Ron had stayed at the Burrow, stayed at that muggle pub, stayed with the Order, stayed away, anywhere but here in this tent.

And the guilt in his bones grows like a harsh, familiar embrace.

"Let's lay it down for tonight. End this here. We're all—we're all completely knackered. We need to get some sleep. Fresh eyes, and all that, yeah? I'll take first watch."

He is amazed at how calm he sounds, how easily he adapts, and then most of all how lovely she looks in this low light, face rosy and streaked with tears. He moves his right hand from her shoulder to her cheek and wipes the wetness away with his thumb, slow and gentle.

It is a calculated risk, this small moment. And it is a moment he is choosing to steal anyway.

She leans into his touch. He supposes she needs it just as much as he does.

He knows Ron is just behind him, that they will have to deal with this very soon, one way or another. But not tonight. Not right now.

Later.

He tilts his head down mildly and gives her forehead an almost imperceptible nudge with his own. "Give us a second." Permission granted. She noiselessly moves out of the entrance flap to the tiny front porch.

He shifts towards the table, suddenly bereft without her skin against his.

"Mate," Harry sighs, sitting carefully in the chair beside Ron.

The sobs have dwindled to embarrassed sniffles and he breathes through his mouth to recover, ruddier and far less exquisite than the brunette outside right now.

"Mate," Harry says again, a hand on his friend's knee. _So damn tired._ "I'm forgiving you now, okay? If you need to go home, I get it. I do."

Ron roughly wipes his face with his palms, resolute. "I'm not leaving you guys again. I won't. I don't blame you for not trusting me. But I'm staying. No matter what."

Harry bites the inside of his cheek, and he's not quite sure if that's true, but frankly he doesn't have the energy to argue. "Alright, mate."

They regard one another like everything is different and completely new.

Harry supposes it is.

"For tonight, you need to sleep. I said it and I meant it, Ron. You look like shite. You can take watch tomorrow." He rubs his eyes. There's a pause. "It'll be nice to have another set of eyes again. To split the difference."

Harry gestures to the corner bedroom, unused for almost two months. "Still yours."

"Tomorrow, then." Ron wipes his mouth, grabs his satchel, and moves slowly away from the kitchen toward the bed, still made up, since he had first walked away.

He passes Hermione's bed, perfectly made and pristine. Of course, it hadn't been slept in for weeks.

Ron pauses before he turns the corner.

"Harry—I—"

Strangled and half-way there, questioning.

"I really am sorry. I'll—I'll regret it. For the rest of my life."

They regard one another, the distance between them strange and monumental.

"I know. Sleep, mate. Really."

Ron nods once and the bed creaks under his body. He doesn't even bother to take off his boots.

Harry pulls Hermione's jacket from the coat hanger near the door and exits the tent flap to where Hermione still sits. She doesn't look up at him when he drapes it over her shoulders. She is wringing her hands again.

He sits beside her. Within seconds they can already hear Ron's soft snores floating through the kitchen towards them, a sound that is simultaneously familiar and totally foreign.

He puts his hands in his coat pocket. "Alright?"

"I'm usually far more cautious. I'm sorry." She keeps wringing her hands. "I thought the anger had faded. I've been more worried than anything. But the second I saw him sitting there, it all just came rushing back."

"I understand. I didn't even think he was real at first. Thought I was hallucinating or something. And then I was just relieved that he was alive. And, then the horcrux…But then you ran into the clearing and I—well—" He keeps trying to smooth his hair. He supposes This Is Later. "Honestly, Hermione, I felt a bit sick about it. The way he was— _looking_ at you—"

He doesn't even have time to react before her lips are on his, desperate and flushed. When she pulls away, her eyes are wide and sure. He hadn't asked a question, but it's an answer. A blissful, exquisite relief spreads from his belly to his toes.

"I wasn't sure if you still wanted to be…" She searches for the right words. "This. Whatever this is—with me. Now that he's back. And it's fine if you don't, Harry. These things happen, sometimes, during war."

Harry puts his hands on her neck and leans his forehead against hers again. He has discovered that this is his favorite place now, for tiny moments of rest, like recharging a battery.

"I thought the same thing about you." He considers it carefully, and then, "I was terrified, to be honest. I didn't want you to change your mind. Or regret it."

She offers a tearful-sounding snort. "So was I. And I won't. And I don't."

"My head's all messed up. The horcrux showed him a scene of us kissing. I was pretty sure for a second he wouldn't be able to destroy it."

Hermione takes his hands from her throat, holds them tightly in hers as she stares at his chest. He can see the gears turning in her head, behind her eyes.

"Harry, we should figure out what this is. Or decide, together, what we want it to be." She chews on her bottom lip anxiously, chancing a glance at him before looking away again. "I've gone over this in my head a thousand times and I know you. I know there's Ron and Ginny and that complicates things for you." Guilt flutters around in him like it has tiny wings. "At the risk of sounding very harsh…well, I don't really care. Because this isn't about them. It's about you and me."

Harry lets out a low sigh and tightens his grip on her fingers. "Hermione—"

"No, please just—just let me finish. I never want to stand between you and what you want. And if this thing between us is only temporary, then I understand. I won't hold it against you." She takes a large breath and exhales forcefully, puffing out her cheeks.

He is startled by this proclamation — at its casualty. Could she go back to The Way Things Were? Harry attempts to swallow that concept and it is bleach in his mouth.

Ron snoring in the tent. Hermione holding his hand.

All the same. And yet extraordinarily transformed.

Harry is trying to reconcile the two things that matter to him. And he isn't sure, because this is new, brand new for him, but he thinks that whatever love is, whatever it looks like, whatever form it inhabits, that this is the closest he has ever been to it.

It is there, in his skin, like DNA. Perpetual. Invariable.

"I've always known how much the world expects from you," she continues. "But I don't expect anything. I only want you to be happy. It's all I've ever wanted, really. So if you want to end it, then we will. But if you're in, so am I. We can deal with the rest later."

_Later._

Not for the first time today, he wonders how far Later will be from now. He feels himself hurtling forward in time to something, an ending perhaps. Or a beginning. Maybe they are one and the same. Either way, he is frightened. Frightened at the murkiness, the glaring uncertainty of the future taking shape before him. Frightened of hurting others and frightened of hurting her.

It sobers him. To know how much more there still is for him to lose.

"Hermione. Everything changed, that night with you. I thought that much was obvious."

His words linger like static. For a moment, they just listen to the ebbing of Ron's rhythmic snores inside the tent and Harry tries to imagine moving forward without this fledgeling, private thing which they have created together. He wonders if he could even stop himself from touching her, from holding her waist as they put together a meal from their meager supplies in the evenings. Tries to imagine not feeling her breathing while she sleeps. Every thought sends an unpleasant chill down his spine. The idea of it is unfathomable.

_No._

Can't. Won't.

Take your pick. The result is the same.

He can sacrifice many things. But he can't sacrifice her.

He instinctively tucks one hand under her thigh and the other around her waist and he lifts her ( _still too thin_ ), pulling her body into his lap. Her knees press against his sides and her hips feel right, just right, under his fingers. She wraps her arms around his neck. Strokes the messy locks at the base of his hairline. That feels right, too.

It always has, he reminds himself. Every single time.

"It didn't even occur to me that this would be temporary. I don't want it to be," he tells her honestly, because it's the truth.

What is between them is fragile and new and soft. Surrounded by dark people and dark things. He wishes he could tuck it away, deep inside, to keep it safe. Nurture it. Feed it. Watch it grow.

He feels a profound grief in his chest that he might not be able to.

Once again the relentless path before them twists and undulates.

And he walks on.

He kisses her, long and sweet, and it is as close to love as he can bear. When this is over, he'll show her. When this is over, he'll show her every single day. When she pulls away, her expression is determined.

"Harry. If we're doing this for real, then we have to tell him. I know you don't want to hurt him. And I don't want to come between you. But I won't…I won't be a secret. Not for Ronald. Not to ease your conscience."

Harry winces. "Touchè."

"Maybe that's why he saw what he saw in the horcrux. Because deep down, he already knew. Regardless, I won't stay away from you to keep him. Please don't ask me to. I don't want to—I don't want to waste any time."

Of course. The clock is ticking. He supposes it has been his entire life. She buries her head in the crook of his neck and Harry pulls her tighter against his chest, his heart aching, aching, aching. He thinks of a poem he read once, and it reverberates on a loop in his mind.

_I've got promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep._

He kisses her forehead. Her cheeks. Says, simply, "Okay."

It is enough.

He doesn't know what will happen. Later. When the sun rises and Ron steps out, bleary-eyed, to take over his watch shift. When he sees them still sitting here, just like this, her body wrapped tight against his chest as Harry watches the tree line. They will have to face it, together, when it comes. Come what may.

One thing is certain in Harry's mind. Only one.

There was a before, and there would be an after.

Hermione Granger was both.


End file.
